Both Prosper and the sloop jolted hard enough to cause everyone on both ships to stagger as the Storm Rider came up against the sloop’s starboard quarter near the stern.
The ballista crew, who’d been reloading to hit the Prosper, swung their weapon about on its mount to engage the Storm Rider before her crew could board the sloop.
Some legionaries were trying to force their way aboard Prosper, but Jules’ “guards” were holding them back while the crossbows behind Artem and the others shot into the attackers.
Another jolt, this time all three ships jerking from the shock as the third ship made contact on the port bow of the sloop, throwing grapnels across.
Jules looked over the sloop’s deck to the third ship, her heart leaping. “Sun Queen!” she shouted. “About time you got here!”
“It’s Jules!” someone yelled on the Sun Queen. She heard her name picked up, chanted by the crews of the three ships as the crew and legionaries of the sloop retreated to form a tight shield wall around the ballista, leaving many of their number already fallen in the fights against the Prosper and the Storm Rider.
The three ships locked to the sloop were too close for the ballista to hit their decks without shooting lower than the height of the shield wall about it. But the ballista crew were swinging it about again, aiming toward Prosper. Jules, realizing what the Imperials would do, raced down from the quarterdeck to the crossbows. “They’re going to open a gap for the ballista to shoot through! Aim toward that ballista and be ready to shoot when the shields move aside!”
The crossbows on the Prosper leveled, their shots pausing as each man and woman aimed where Jules had directed. Crossbows on both the Sun Queen and the Storm Rider were still shooting, but the bolts were only lodging in the legionary shields, not penetrating through to hit the legionaries.
The shield wall facing Prosper suddenly swung open, giving the ballista a clean shot at the deck of Prosper. But before it could fire the crossbows twanged, sending their bolts into the ballista crew and the backs of legionaries facing the other way.The shield wall closed again.
How to break this stalemate without hurling sailors against legionary swords?
One of the women with a crossbow pointed up. “Can some of us go up a mast? That’ll let us shoot down over the shields.”
“Yes,” Jules said. “Brilliant idea. Captain Aravind! Some sailors to help some of these crossbows up the mainmast!”
As those with crossbows climbed the rigging, Jules went to the railing facing the sloop. “You’re beaten!” she yelled at the sloop’s defenders. “Surrender!”
“We’ll kill all of you first!” someone yelled back from behind the shield wall. It wasn’t the captain of the sloop. Jules wondered if the captain was dead or only wounded.
Crossbows released over her head, their bolts slamming into the legionaries unprotected against blows from above. Some of the legionaries tried to raise their shields to protect against the crossbows on the mast, but that opened gaps in the shield wall that crossbows on deck could fire into.
The Imperial formation fell apart, sailors dropping their weapons, legionaries forming small knots of resistance that found themselves surrounded by cutlasses. Jules saw the ship’s centurion lying dead and one of the last Imperial officers fall in a fight with pirates off of Erin’s Storm Rider. The sloop’s remaining defenders didn’t surrender all at once, but in ones and twos as hope fled.
The clash of metal on metal and the shouts of fighting dwindled as Jules found herself standing on the deck of the sloop with the last fighting ending.
People came charging at her, Jules instinctively raising her sword before she saw who they were.
Gord, Marta, Kyle, and others from the Sun Queen, laughing and cheering as they slapped her on the shoulders and back. “We knew you’d be back,” Gord said in the relieved way of someone who’d harbored fears of the opposite.
“I couldn’t leave you fools wandering around without proper leadership,” Jules said, grinning at them.
Her smile faded as she saw Keli the healer had left the Sun Queen and was tending to the injured aboard the sloop. The healer from Storm Rider had also boarded the sloop. “Did your healer survive?” Jules yelled at some of the surviving legionaries.
One pointed to a woman in legionary armor already at work next to Keli.
Looking about, Jules saw Artem and the other guards close by her. “Artem, have someone stand by the legionary healer so no one interferes with her work thinking she’s just another prisoner.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Captain Erin came striding up, looking about her at the blood-stained decks of the sloop. “As far as I can tell, every officer died before the crew surrendered.”
“This one’s still alive!” one of her crew called.
Jules followed Erin to a spot near the mainmast where a man in the dark red Imperial officer uniform lay. He’d been turned to lie on his back, but his eyes were closed, a lump visible on his forehead. Only his breathing confirmed that he hadn’t died.
Jules heard an inarticulate noise, realizing it had come from her as she stared at the fallen officer. “Ian?”
* * *
The four ships had made their triumphal entrance into the harbor, the inhabitants of Dor’s Castle gazing with amazement at the spectacle of an Imperial warship wrested from the Emperor’s control and Imperial legionaries made prisoners by free people.
Jules had ridden in on the Sun Queen after tearful reunions with the rest of the crew, but she’d been preoccupied the whole time, worrying about Ian. She did, after all, owe her life to him.
But, having seen him lying as if dead, she’d finally realized there were other reasons for her concern for him.
Blazes, why? She thought of the dying Mage’s reply to that question. “There is no answer to why, but the answers are so many they are beyond number.” The last thing Ian needed was for her to have strong feelings for him. The last thing any man in the world needed was that, because she was a walking death sentence to anyone who got too close to her.
Not that he was likely to want her, not after she’d caused the death of his father and the imprisonment of his mother and sister.
And even if he did, the prophecy lay between them. To the rest of the common people in the world, the prophecy was a promise. To her, it often felt more like a curse.
What do I do, Mak? Jules silently asked the Sun Queen’s former captain. She’d sometimes felt as if Mak was still here, his spirit stopping by his old cabin to check up on her. But if Mak’s ghost was here this day, he gave no sign of it.
She gained a brief distraction by examining the Mechanic weapons that Ang and Liv had kept safe for her. The revolver she’d left in the cabin, with one cartridge remaining in it, hadn’t been touched. The other revolver, the one she’d dropped from the mast while trying to fight the huge Mage birds, didn’t seem to have broken. At least, everything still moved as it had before. She couldn’t try a test shot, of course, not when she had only two cartridges left in this Mechanic weapon. Two Mechanic revolvers and a total of three shots between them. Not exactly an arsenal, but possibly life-saving if more Mages showed up.
Would one of these Mechanic weapons have been able to kill the Mage troll that had destroyed the Hawk’s Mantle? Remembering the creature, and how crossbow bolts had barely nicked it, Jules didn’t think it would’ve helped nearly enough. But then the revolver she’d taken up the mast hadn’t been able to destroy the huge Mage birds, either.
A knock on the cabin door offered a welcome break from her brooding. “Captain Erin to see you,” Artem announced.
“Send her in. Are you guarding that door?”
“That’s our job, Captain.”
“Not on my own ship, it’s not. Find Ang and tell him you and the other guards are part of the crew now.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Erin came in, grinning. “Sentry at the door, eh? Getting up in the world, you are.”
“Very fu
nny.” Jules sighed, looking about her. “I’m still getting used to knowing I’m back here. More than once I didn’t think I’d ever see this cabin again. Have a seat.”
The other captain sat down, stretching out her legs before her and adjusting her knife sheaf so it didn’t dig into her side. “I came by for a couple of reasons. One was to let you know Storm Rider will be sailing out tomorrow to look for any rich merchant ships around the Sharr Isles that could benefit from us lightening their money chests. But that means we must resolve the matter of the sloop we have acquired thanks to the Emperor’s generosity.”
Jules nodded. “The sloop needs a new name, a new captain, and a new crew.”
“Just so.” Erin canted her head toward the town. “There’s a woman who washed up here, name of Kat. She was captain of the Fair Chance.”
“Kat of Severun?” Jules said. “I’ve heard good things of her. What happened to the Fair Chance?”
“A sudden squall ran her aground on the rocks a little ways east of here. Kat saved most of her crew and salvaged enough of a raft from the wreck to sail along the coast until they got here, but she’s been stuck since.”
“And you think she’d be a good choice for captain of the…um…Second Chance? Could she be counted on to give us a cut of whatever her ship takes?”
“Second Chance?” Erin laughed. “That’s a good new name! Yes. Kat could be counted on for that. More’s the point, she’d pay us back in other ways if we ever need her to back us in a fight. Kat’s like that. She might need some more crew, though, to handle that sloop.”
“I brought about ten new sailors with me to the Sun Queen,” Jules said. “This ship can spare some of her crew if any want to join Kat’s ship.”
“I can spare a few as well,” Erin said. “Shall I make the offer to Kat, then?”
“Yes,” Jules said. “What’s your other reason for stopping by?”
Erin turned serious, her eyes on Jules. “The other reason is to make sure you understand what it is that you’ve done.”
“What have I done this time?” Jules asked, smiling.
Erin shook her head in reply, looking somber. “This is the first time in the history of this world that an Imperial order to common folk has been met with defiance and victory. Such a thing was unthinkable not long ago. I wouldn’t have even considered it if we hadn’t taken Western Port. But people could claim that we only attacked Western Port because we were told to by the Mechanics, and that we only won because we had those two Mechanic weapons. But, here, we made all the decisions. And, here, we won with only the tools available to the common folk.
“Jules, you’ve changed the world.”
A thousand emotions raced through her, culminating in a self-mocking laugh. “It’s the daughter of my line who’s going to do that, remember?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Erin said, thumping one fist on the table. “Up to now, every common person served the Emperor and did whatever the Empire demanded of them. But now we have this independent thing, this idea that commons can make their own decisions about who rules them. Without that idea, how could that daughter of your line ever succeed? We have that idea, and we’ve shown that the Empire can be fought and defeated. We’re never going to give up either of those things. And you made them happen.”
Jules looked away, trying to think, reluctant to claim credit for what others had helped make happen. But if there was one thing that Erin could be counted on to do, it was speak her mind. She wouldn’t be saying this if she didn’t believe it and think it needed saying. “There’s a lot left to do,” Jules finally said.
“Aye. I didn’t mean to imply the work was done.” Erin bent a questioning look at her. “Or are you thinking of some specific thing yet to do?”
There was no one she could really talk to about this. But she needed to say something to someone. “I need to have a child.” Erin raised her eyebrows at Jules as she rushed on, her words tumbling out. “I realized it while I was captured and escaping the Empire. About how angry I’d be if the Emperor forced me to bear his children and stole the prophecy. About how terrible it would be if the Mages succeeded in killing me and destroying my line before it began. I’ve been avoiding it, because I didn’t want to be forced into it. But I can’t keep pretending it doesn’t matter, pretending that I have all the time in the world to decide and to act.”
Erin listened, her expression solemn. “The decision is yours, but I can’t fault your reasons.”
“But how can I have a child?” Jules asked.
“Girl, you do know how that works, don’t you?”
“Of course I know how that works!” Jules glared off to one side. “It’s just…who.”
“There’s no man you’d want that with?” Erin asked. “That fellow Shin we left up at Western Port thinks the world of you.”
“Shin is my brother in every way but blood,” Jules said. “I couldn’t even…ugh. Too weird.” She paused, reluctant. “There is… If I had to… I don’t know.”
“I can’t help you there,” Erin said. “Ships and the sea are far easier to deal with than a woman’s heart, and I should know having had my own troubles there. What about that Imperial officer? The one who survived? You seemed strongly affected by the sight of him.”
“What about him?” Jules said, hearing the sudden stiffness in her voice.
“Ah, it’s like that? You know him?”
“It’s not like anything.” She relented in the face of Erin’s polite but obvious interest. “Ian and I were friends, and he wanted to be more but I wasn’t ready. And then…things happened. Anyway, I only survived Imperial captivity because he gave me the keys to my chains when the Mages were coming for me. But he’s only a friend.”
“Only a friend? A friend who broke his oath to the Emperor to save your life, you mean.” Erin sighed as she stood up. “For all you’ve done and been through, you’re still young. Do you know how rare a thing a true friend is? You can fall in love as quick as the snap of your fingers, but to become a friend takes time and work and caring. Many a woman has married the man she loved, only to realize as the flames cooled that she needed a friend. If it were me facing your choice, I’d take a close look at that friend.”
“He won’t want me now,” Jules said.
“Have you asked him? Never mind. None of my business.” Erin headed for the door. “I’ve a lot do, including running down Kat with what’ll be the best offer she’s received since that Imperial prince took a liking to her. Mind you, she didn’t take that offer.”
“Captain Erin?” Jules said as Erin opened the door to the cabin to leave.
“Yes, Captain Jules?”
“Thank you. I do know a friend when I see one.”
Erin grinned. “Mak would want me to keep an eye on you, wouldn’t he?”
She went out, leaving Jules alone again with her thoughts and the ghost of Mak.
* * *
Some time later Ang stuck his head in the cabin. “Cap’n, that Imperial officer you were worried about is awake. He seems all right. Maybe has a headache, but he can walk and talk.”
Jules closed her eyes for a moment to control the leap of joy inside her. “Please have him brought here.”
“I’ll get some of your guards to do that, Cap’n.”
She flinched. “Ang, it’s not that big a thing. If it bothers you—”
“Not at all,” Ang said, looking serious. “Shame about the Evening Star.”
“Yes,” Jules said. “I guess we got some revenge for them today.”
Ang grinned. “Yes, Cap’n, we sure did.”
The afternoon far along and light fading, Jules lit the storm lantern in the stern cabin. She paused by the stern windows, facing the land, seeing lights begin to come in the windows of the buildings of Dor’s Castle. Well behind them, the wall rose against the sky. Dor wasn’t fooling around. That would be an impressive wall when completed.
Then all she could do was wait, nervous, until someone knocked on the cab
in door again.
Ian came into the cabin, escorted by Artem on one side and Mad on the other. They both had swords out, and Ian’s hands were bound behind him. He came to a stop in the middle of the cabin, his body rigid, staring into a corner as if Jules didn’t exist. His dark red Imperial uniform bore rips and scuffs, a large wet patch on one leg marked bleeding from a shallow sword cut, and a large bruise mottled one side of his forehead where the lump was still visible.
If she’d hated Ian, it would have been a fine moment to gloat. As it was…it hurt. “Unbind him.”
Artem sheathed his sword and went to work, unknotting and removing the rope around Ian’s wrists.
Ian let his hands fall alongside his body, the marks of the ropes standing out stark against his skin, but otherwise didn’t react.
“Leave me alone with him,” Jules said to Artem and Mad.
“Captain?” Artem questioned.
“I’ll be fine.” She brought out her dagger and sat it on the table within easy reach.
Reassured, Artem and Mad left, closing the door behind them.
Jules sat looking at Ian, who still didn’t move, his eyes still looking elsewhere. “Ian.”
Nothing.
“Ian, I told you I didn’t kill your father. That’s the truth.”
Nothing.
Jules let out a loud sigh, unsure whether to be angry or exasperated. “Your mother and your sister are here. In the town.”
That finally got a reaction, Ian’s gaze fixing on her, his expression disbelieving.
“They’d been sentenced to field labor,” Jules said. “I don’t know what they were charged with. They won’t talk to me except to threaten me with dire fates. I was able to rescue them and the others with them who were going to be transported north to estates around Umburan.” Explaining that the rescue had been entirely inadvertent wouldn’t serve any purpose. “You don’t have to believe me. You can go see them. All you have to do is swear not to harm or cause harm to this town or anyone in it. Or you can choose to remain a prisoner and be returned to the Empire along with the others.”
Fate of the Free Lands Page 11
